Welcome to the Official Monkey Commando Web site! This site will enlighten you about an incredible ministry that God has started using an immense CO2 cannon, and stuffed 34" monkeys! Imagine a 54 year old guy who is reliving his childhood, firing this cannon and launching stuffed monkeys into the hands of children and adults all over the world! What a rush!!!!
Many people walk around in life concerned that becoming a believer in Jesus will somehow restrict their lives, that they will have to live under intense scrutiny forever! Check this out!
About 3 years ago, being a bit of an out of the box guy anyway, I decided to go online and order a supercharged T-Shirt cannon so I could launch shirts into crowds of people at concerts. I have seen this done at basketball and football games and thought, Wow - I would really love to be involved with something like this! So, Online I went, searching for the perfect weapon. I found it in Denver, Colorado and immediately had it shipped to my office. Of course, for the next few weeks I would sneak out of the office for a few minutes each day just to "test fly" a few shirts, tennis balls, or whatever else I could find that would fit in the barrel.
Monterey, California - 1st Military site we visited
A few weeks later, one of my good friends here in California brought over a stuffed 34" monkey and said "try this in your cannon". I couldn't turn down a great challenge like that so outside we went, cannon and monkey in hand. The first shot launched that monkey about 200 feet. When we taped up the monkey's arms and legs, the monkeys flew about 600 feet! I soon realized that there might be something to this!!! I ended up ordering about 600 monkeys just before the Spirit West Coast festival in Monterey, California. I took all of the monkeys up on the stage, about 25 at a time and began launching them into the crowd throughout the 3 day weekend event. The promoters of the festival thought I had lost my mind but the crowd reaction was impressive! Usually, the applause was louder for the monkey launcher that the main event headliners!
A new ministry was born that day. The stage MC (Dave Edwards) http://www.davetown.com started calling me the Monkey Commando for some strange reason and of course the name "stuck". Soon after the Spirit West Coast festival that year, a Lt. Colonel from the Army (CH Lt. COL Steve Young ARMY RETIRED) called me to ask if I could launch monkeys to crowds of kids at his military base in Monterey, CA. We scheduled up the event and made it happen. We launched over 450 monkeys at that event and as I understand it, many of those kids still have their monkeys, walking around the base or somewhere else in the world.
Dave Edwards
I want to personally thank Dave for his humor, creativity, and his willingness to be a part of a growing ministry!
To date, we have launched an estimated 6,000 monkeys from the cannon with more to come in 2008. The Monkey Commando has been to the Pentagon, Ft. Belvoir, VA, Ft. Polk, LA, Ft Hood, TX, Ft. Lewis, WA and many other locations to bless soldiers and their families.
There is mjuch more to this fun ministry! Read more about how this all happened in future posts!